Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/368

 discovered, charged upon, and surrounded by a large body of hostile Cheyennes and Sioux, who fired a volley of not less than one hundred shots, but aimed too high and did not hit a man; three of the horses and one of the mules were severely crippled, and the command was forced to take to the rocks and timber at the edge of the mountains, whence they escaped, leaving animals and saddles behind. The savages seemed confident of their ability to take all of them alive, which may explain in part why they succeeded in slipping away under the guidance of Frank Gruard, to whom the whole country was as familiar as a book; they crept along under cover of high rocks until they had gained the higher slopes of the range, and then travelled without stopping for two days and nights, pursued by the baffled Indians, across steep precipices, swift torrents, and through almost impenetrable forests. When they reached camp the whole party looked more like dead men than soldiers of the army: their clothes were torn into rags, their strength completely gone, and they faint with hunger and worn out with anxiety and distress. Two of the men, who had not been long in service, went completely crazy and refused to believe that the tents which they saw were those of the command; they persisted in thinking that they were the "tepis" of the Sioux and Cheyennes, and would not accompany Sibley across the stream, but remained hiding in the rocks until a detachment had been sent out to capture and bring them back. It should be mentioned that one of the Cheyenne chiefs, "White Antelope," was shot through the head by Frank Gruard and buried in all his fine toggery on the ground where he fell; his body was discovered some days after by "Washakie," the head-chief of the Shoshones, who led a large force of his warriors to the spot. General Crook, in forwarding to General Sheridan Lieutenant Sibley's report of the affair, indorsed it as follows: "I take occasion to express my grateful appreciation to the guides, Frank Gruard and Baptiste Pourrier, to Messrs. Bechtel, called Traynor in my telegram, and John F. Finerty, citizen volunteers, and to the small detachment of picked men from the Second Cavalry, for their cheerful endurance of the hardships and perils such peculiarly dangerous duty of necessity involves. The coolness and judgment displayed by Lieutenant Sibley and Frank Gruard, the guide, in the conduct of this reconnaissance, made in the face of the whole force of the